Retrospective Managing Alpine Future II
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Shortfilm: Managing Alpine Future II Film - click here (german only)
Press review - click here (german only)
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From 21-23 November 2011, leading climate change researchers gathered in Innsbruck again to discuss issues of investment in the future. As in 2007, the organisers, alpS Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Technologies, the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Mountain Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), succeeded in bringing together top experts, such as Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Crutzen, eminent meteorologist Mojib Latif and mountain research pioneer Jack Ives, plus more than 300 participants from all over the world.
The plenary discussions and workshops focused on inter- and transdisciplinarity, cooperation between academic disciplines and with actors beyond the scientific community. The natural sciences can only provide the basis for exploring the effects of climate and global change and for developing adaptation strategies. If we want to find solutions for the immense global change problems, face the great challenges and grasp the opportunities embedded in them, we need not only the integration of various sciences but also the interaction of science, politics, the economy and society. Sustainability always rests on the four pillars of ecology, economy, social policy and culture.
“Joint investment in the future, joint responsibility for the future” was the motto for the joint press conference of regional politicians, scientists and business people on 21 November to kick off three days of transdiciplinarity. The first afternoon was dedicated to the findings of natural sciences, forcefully presented by Jack Ives and Mojib Latif. In the evening, attention turned to implementation expertise. During the “Tyrolean Evening”, Craig Duncan from UN task force ISDR presented the federal province of Tyrol and the town of Lienz with the designation as global model regions for their efforts in risk prevention and risk management.
The second day of the conference was set aside for interdisciplinary research workshops but at the same time opened up new perspectives and participant groups. While the scientific community debated the latest research findings in areas ranging from spatial planning to tourism, hydrology to sociology, energy and ecology to ethics and politics, students from various technical colleges in Tyrol presented projects on similar themes to a critical jury of experts from the conference. And in the tent of the Austrian Torrent and Avalanche Control, Beaver Berti showed younger school children how to plant a forest to protect a village from avalanches and rock fall. The conference day closed with a public event of diverse perspectives on climate change.
The title “Alpenglüh`n? Leben in den Alpen im Zeichen des Klimawandels” (Glowing Alps? Life in the Alps under conditions of Climate Change) attracted nearly 200 visitors to the Orangerie at Congress Innsbruck. Retired bishop Reinhold Stecher sounded a low “gong of respect vis-à-vis nature”. He was followed by a diverse but competent round of discussants: climatologist Helga Kromp-Kolb, Hannes Gschwentner, responsible for environmental issues in the Tyrolean government, mountaineer Peter Habeler and Hans Haid, ethnologist and cultural anthropologist from the Ötztal. They engaged in an expert and entertaining debate on climate change in all its scientific as well as its down-to-earth local dimensions.
The third day was the day of Paul Crutzen, Nobel Prize Laureate in chemistry, father of ozone research and the man who coined the term “anthropocene”. After his talk, in response to the question from a student, he gave out the message to the young, “Do a better job than I did” – a hard act to follow for the young generation and a fine note to end on for “Managing Alpine Future II” from a man who has shown us impressively over the years that the spaceship Earth has no emergency exit.
Public interest in “Managing Alpine Future II” was fuelled by the freak weather in the conference period. An unprecedented drought during October and November, longer than ever recorded before, meant that host country Tyrol was unable to present itself in its trademark winter glory. Instead, the public as well as the conference participants found themselves in an extended Indian summer only four weeks before Christmas.
So it is not surprising that media reactions focused on the link between science and winter tourism, the economic base of the region – transdisciplinarity in action. (translated by Dr. Brigitte Scott)
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A peer-reviewed proceedings volume is already published (table of contents): Borsdorf, A., J. Stötter & E. Veulliet (eds.) 2011: Managing Alpine Future II - Inspire and drive sustainable mountain regions. Proceedings of the Innsbruck Conference, November 21-23, 2011. (= IGF-Forschungsberichte 4). Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Wien.
ISBN: 978-3-7001-7153-3.